Great advice on how to sell a service.
I have a Moleskine full of notes from this book.
I have a photography business and I'm implementing the tactics from this awesome book now!

Now, this is the book to get from Beckwith - don't waste your time with "What Clients Love" (60% of that book is in here and the rest of it is largely a promo for why you need hire a professional branding firm).

This book has lots of good gems that you should be able to put to use right away, including:

- the three stages of a service company and the relationship to positioning and sales

- tips on customer/client surveys

- why, when selling a service, you're actually selling a relationship and what to do

- how prospects decide

- why the there are really 2 aspects you bill for: the commodity (such as hammering a nail) and the expertise (knowing where to hammer)

And so on. Very well done.

As a side note, what this book will not do for you is lay out a plan for you to compete in this "invisible" market effectively; for that, take a look at Potter's "Winning in the Invisible Market."

This is not about tricking people... It's about the idea that your very best resource is YOU, and how to sell THAT. It's intangible, so it feels like you can be "selling the invisible."

Excellent book in helping you to find your confidence in business or other.

This book is a winner! Harry Beckwith does a masterful job of illustrating his points with simple, real-life stories. I took lots of notes and recorded a number of useful anecdotes to help me improve my communication and results with prospects and clients. The insights provided on surveying clients, the concept of "lesser logic", and the "Halo Effect" will enable me to evaluate my current strategies and make needed changes. I am also recommending this book to all my coaching clients as we look for new and creative ways to market their businesses.

This little gem of a book is packed with tips, ideas and insights that can help you sell the intangible. Author Harry Beckwith trains his sights on the special challenges of marketing services, especially but not exclusively professional services.

If you are in the service industry, read this book.

If you are an attorney, accountant, consultant or in any service capacity, you will gain and profit from reading and heeding Beckwith's advice. One of his core ideas is that marketing is NOT a department - it is an essential ongoing process in which everyone in the organization should participate.

I started folding the corners of pages I wanted to come back to and found at the end I had a very dog-eared copy of the book! Well worth the time in a very readable style reminiscent of another marketing guru - Jeffrey Fox.

No cliches, no superlatives-just common sense ideas that are often overlooked. Take plenty of notes-ideas flow from almost every page.

Heard a taped copy of SELLING THE INVISILBE: A FIELD
GUIDE TO MODERN MARKETING by Harry Beckwith and
was pleasantly surprised that I liked it as much as I did, in that
the title did not "grab me" . . . nor did the fact that it was
written in 1997.

However, that said, it soon became obvious that Beckwith
(founder of Beckwith Advertising and Marketing) knows his
stuff . . . his many examples were relevant to me and would
be to just about anybody else's business or individual career.

For instance, he points out that:
* You can't thank your customers too much. And you're probably
not doing it enough.

To rectify this situation:
* Send twice as many thank you notes as you did last year.

Though this might sound basic, the reality that most of us
don't do such things . . . he also gives this great suggestion:
* Write an ad for your service. After a week, if the ad is
poor, it's time to look at your service--not the ad.

Among the many other tidbits I gained from SELLING THE
INVISIBLE were the following:
* Just don't think. Better to think differently.

* Even your best friends won't tell you certain information, but
they will talk behind your back. So have a third party do surveys.

* Phone surveys reveal more information than in-person surveys.

* Never ask, "What don't you like about our company or service?"
You're asking somebody to admit they made a bad decision
on choosing you.

* Study each point of contact to improve your company; e.g., business
card, receptionist, signage, etc.

And perhaps my favorite:
* In an argument, remember these three words: Maybe he's right.
Carry this with you in an envelope.

Even if you have to dig some to find SELLING THE INVISIBLE,
your effort will pay off in the fact that you will gain many
usable techniques that you can apply to your business or
service . . . in your life, too, such as this final idea for improving
the lot of all children:
* If a child ends school on a positive note, it will carry over to the
next morning and day.

This is one of the best books I have ever read for tips on marketing services. As the proprietor of a new business selling PR services, I gleaned a lot of great information from the book and put it to work immediately. The book has definitely helped my business.

I loved this book! It's full of short, to-the-point descriptions of each of the salient topics which made for an informative and entertaining read. I own a recording studio and graphic design business, both very much service-oriented, and I've changed my viewpoint on how to best market these "invisible" services. Our new marketing strategy is already getting rave reviews in our limited survey so we are gearing up to roll it out to the public. Even if you sell products, there's more service in the sale than you may have previously believed...

It is much easier to sell a book than it is to sell life insurance. Why? Because the customer can hold and touch and see the book. You can't hold, touch or see insurance. (The policy is not the insurance.)

Beckwith understands selling intangibles better than anyone and he tells how in this book. It is in my top ten of business and marketing books for people who sell services. Even if you sell products, you will learn some valuable information. Well worth the money.

This book was suggested reading by our Marketing Department. As an Engineer, I decided to read it to find out more about marketing. The book was easy to read and understand. It summarized the basics of good client service. Most things were obvious, but probably not done nearly enough. For example, the book recommended thanking your clients as often as possible.

This is one of the best books I have ever read on the subject of selling a service or services.

My company is a small-time operation. I own a computer service and repair business. Essentially, I am the company. That's why this book is perfect for me.

Beckwith's guide taught me what is most important about what I do and how to focus on that, and then sell it. It also showed me what customers look for, what they don't care about, and the benefits of knowing these things.

If I could go back in time and give myself a copy of this book when I was just starting out, my income would probably be double what it is today. Simply purchasing this book and making a few minor changes has already made a huge difference the bottom line.

This is another one of those classics. The fundamental message is timeless, and while some of the companies mentioned have changed the lessons behind the stories are still relevant. The book is made up of a series of anecdotes that each delivers a punch, consisting of good solid advice. Harry was ahead of his time offering insights on the "new" world of service in 1997 when the book was published, and offering that even service companies have brand equity to care for. There are good essential marketing skills included here that many of us may have forgotten. I reread this book again recently and was reminded of a few things that are worth re-applying to my own marketing efforts and the work I do for clients. You can't help but become a better marketer after reading this.

Harry Beckwith's Selling the Invisible reminds me of Sun Tzu's The Art of War in that it is not so much a manual on its subject as it is a primer on how to think about its subject. Knowing nothing of service marketing when I started to read it, I found many of its precepts counterintuitive (selling relationships?) but with the numerous examples aided by my own observation of the things Beckwith talks about, my eyes were opened in a way Sun Tzu's first readers must have been. Beckwith understands the core of service marketing is the service itself and focusing on the consumer's needs, not clever marketing designed to separate the customer from his cash or dazzle him with an empty sales pitch for unwanted products (take notice, Apple). This relationship to the customer and understanding his or her needs defines the successful business and indeed IS the successful business. Beckwith illustrates this with many practical strategies relevant to any service business.

Terrible is all I can say. This author breaks every rule he suggests to you. The introduction is boring. It is small story chapters with a bold sentence or two at the end. These are the principles he is suggesting. You can read these bold sentences in less than 30 minutes. Don't bother to buy this book.

Terrible is all I can say. This author breaks every rule he suggests to you. The introduction is boring. It is small story chapters with a bold sentence or two at the end. These are the principles he is suggesting. You can read these bold sentences in less than 30 minutes. Don't bother to buy this book.

This book is a real page-turner. (My copy is dog-eared with notes written in margins and post-it notes stuck on 11 different pages.) Harry Beckwith is a marketing genius. One quote I have used over and over again in presentations: "People who say, 'The businesses in our industry are basically alike' should recognize a human trait. People feel a need to justify their buying decisions, so they look for differences upon which to base their decisions. What does this mean to a company in an industry of lookalikes? It means that the more alike two products are, the more important each difference becomes." So very true.

Ann Barr,
Author of How to Win the Sale and Keep the Customer

This is a wonderful book for anyone in any service business. Since over 80% of our economy is now service based, everyone can benefit from reading the book.

It is actually a huge collection of essays on marketing. They are short, well written and very insightful. It would be difficult not to pick up 10 to 15 things that you could do immediately to improve your marketing.

The book was written in 1997, so some specific companies he talks about have changed dramatically. However the principles have not changed. These principles will still be valid 50 years from now.

One thing that most service providers have trouble with is pricing their services. They are afraid to charge too much. Beckwith does a great job of explaining why you cannot compete on price.

He tells a little story about Picasso. He was sketching at a sidewalk cafe in Paris when a woman strolling along the street saw him and asked if he would do a sketch of her. He obliged and when finished, she asked how much she owed him. Five thousand francs was the reply. She protested that it had only taken three minutes. Picasso corrected her by saying, "No. It took me all my life." When you are selling services you are not selling your time but your experience. A lesson most in the service business really do not understand.

The book is a pleasure to read.

The insights here are presented in easily digested bites... fun to read, to the point in record time. It is in itself an excellent peice of marketing!

One of the best compilations of engaging questions and critical thinking prompts available. Easy to read through, or revisit from time to time. You can apply the advice and adjust your attitude about your business instantly.

Initially, it seemed there were lots of very short hints with very little meat. On reviewing it more closely, my office book club realized these one-page chapters provided the necessary messages they needed. Primary thrust is understanding the value of customer service and defining how that works. Very well written, Mr. Beckwith provides substantial examples of the ideal customer service profile and activity. What takes some getting-used-to is a writing style with which we are not accustomed in business books. Enjoy it and treat it as a primer to keep handy close to your workspace. Pick it up, open it and find a message for the day that will vastly improve the quality of your business.

A great book to have when you are trying to sell something your customer can not put their hands on. It is loaded with engaging questions to revisit over and over again. This book is great for increasing the perceived value of you or your product. You can apply the advice and adjust your attitude about your business instantly. Very well presented.

This is seriously the most poorly written and edited book I have ever read. I counted more than 10 typos and grammatical errors before I even got to page 5.

How you like this book depends on your approach to work, in some ways. The book is a seeming collage of ideas relating to marketing services to consumers. Each thought stream is elaborated briefly before moving onto the next thought stream, with a semblance of an integrated theme running across the book.

Ergo, I have seen this book getting read and used by two kinds of people. There is the comprehensive model based strategic thinker, for whom this book has little appeal, beyond a motley collection of ideas and is a nice & interesting read, though bereft of any theoretical model on services marketing. And there is the business in-flight on-the-rush reader, to whom this book opens up myriad avenues of thought and action, to whom each idea itself is a wellspring of change and action back at ones' workplace, who absorbs the book in a reactive manner; vis-a-vis the former reader, who tries to proactively structure the concepts of the book into a framework and finds none to his disappointment.

The verdict : Read with an open mind, and an open note book!

I liked this, but the "The New Art of Selling Intangibles" was a little better.

Selling The Invisible truly captures what it means to be in business. This book is a gift, and a great asset. You can apply the advice and adjust your attitude about your business instantly. Now refocused, your better able to help your clients and your self in todays business world. I rank it as the most important business advice I have ever read.

This is a wonderful book that neatly defines why people buy and more importantly, what keeps them from buying. It debunks some common sense approaches and explains proper planning. I especially enjoyed the steps for formulating my own positioning statement. They were the best I have ever seen. Worth every dollar.

Five Stars

Although "Selling the Invisible" focuses mainly on the service aspect of selling products, Beckwith's theory is very relevant to anyone in the communications business - anyone who is selling "words." Freelance writers, book authors, and PR wordsmiths - all can learn from "Selling the Invisible." In my favorite chapter, Beckwith provides a lesson from Picasso. He describes the scene this way: A woman was strolling along a street in Paris when she spotted Picasso sketching at a sidewalk cafý. She asked Picasso to sketch her. He obliged and she asked "What do I owe you?" "Five thousand francs," Picasso answered. "But it only took you three minutes," she said. "No," Picasso said. "It took me all my life."

In another chapter, Beckwith writes about "The Essence of Publicity." Although his focus in this chapter is on advertising and press releases, again - his lesson has great parallels to a freelancer pitching an article. Beckwith teaches writers that in an effort to publicize our editorial services, never ask what makes it so good. Ask what makes our services interesting. Editors want their readers to say "I loved the article!" Lesson to writers: If you want editors to help you, help them. Give them something interesting.

This is a great little book that I hope will never go out of print. (Reviewed by Marion E. Gold, author of "Personal Publicity Planner: A Guide to Marketing YOU")

I've read "Selling the Invisible" several times now. More accurately, I've read most parts several times.

One of the earlier reviewers pointed out that this book is made up of nearly 300 short, to the point, chapters with the key point to remember at the very end of each chapter.

Only thing is, that reviewer saw this method of teaching as a bad thing (or at least a reason not to buy the book).

Allow me to disagree.

As a marketer of "invisible" services my whole career (magazine advertising, electronic commerce, website publishing, language interpretation, copywriting), I have read many books on the topic. This one is the best!

With years of working with clients, Beckwith speaks from experience. His advice is well thought out and valuable. If keeping clients is a primary goal, you can use his advice the very day you read it.

Sure, much of what he says here can be found in thick, dull marketing texts if that's what you enjoy reading.

If, however, sitting down for five minutes with a cup of coffee and getting up with a solid marketing idea you can use sounds like more fun and efficient, I highly recommend this little treasure of business wisdom.

Great book. Great ideas!

This book provides an extensive array of practical tips to help marketing managers make the best tactical decisions possible "on-the-job." However, please note that this book provides information about savvy marketing tactics, not breakthrough strategy.

Communications make services more tangible and visible and give clients something firm to grasp. Marketing communications for services haul a heavier burden than communications for products. We trust products but we are far less trusting of services. So communications about services must make the service more tangible and real and must sooth the worried prospect.

People are interested in themselves. Turn the attention away from "I'm an expert", "I'm the smartest", "me, me, me" and turn the attention to the client. Indifference is the worst enemy not competition. When you do speak say one thing. Saying many things usually communication nothing. Your prospects have one question "What makes you so different that I should do business with you?" So give them one good reason to do business with you then repeat it again and again. Don't use adjectives to explain your reasons, use stories. Work one good basic communication; the communication must be vivid and not unclear, concrete and not abstract, familiar and not unfamiliar, and proper nouns not adjectives. Create evidence of your service and then communicate your service quality. Don't use silly or unprofessional promotional ideas. Prospects don't necessary want to buy the best, they just don't want to buy bad; so, help assure the prospect that you have weakness, you are good enough, and they can be comfort with selecting you. Convey that you are positively good. The client will continue using your service, if the client feels comfortable with them. The golden rule of marketing applies: "It is far better to say too little than too much."

People hear what they see. When people watch commercials they don't hear words, they see pictures. For example, an attorney climbing a mountain caused people to say that "First Banks were strong and solid, like the man climbing the mountain". People will trust their eyes far before they will ever trust your words. Make the invisible visible by using visual symbols to look for clues about what the business is about: Prudential has it's Rock of Gibraltar, Travelers is umbrella, Allstate is good hands, TransAmerica its tower, and Wausau its railroad station. Make sure people see who you are. Make sure your visual communications are consistent and reinforcing through out your company, it make you look more organized and professional and easier to remember. If your selling something complex, simplify it with a metaphor. Metaphors can quickly define your concept and your uniqueness.

If you want publicity then advertise. Prospect believe advertising is publicity and creditability. Advertising is the source by which people come to know the companies mentioned in the ad. People do not believe in companies they have not heard. Write articles and if you want editors to help you then give them something interesting. Give them a story worth publishing. Look deeply there are interesting stories to be told.

Focus on Buying and not selling. Think of the opposite side ask the customer "What do you want; what do you need; who are you". Make buying easy for the customer. Talk with the prospect about them and not you.

People want to smile. The most important thing you can sell is hope. Hope makes people feel good and customers that feel good will continue to give you business.

Ugly cats for sale...focus wins...Don't charge by the hours, charge by the years...Value is not a position, if good value is the first thing you communicate, you won't be effective...Use vivid words and pictures...tell stories.

Selling the Invisible brings common sense advice about sales and marketing to your business. If you are in business for yourself, which I am, you will certainly glean enough from this book to make more money. It is written in a way that it makes a good companion for a cup of coffee or a train ride to work. Powerful and practical ideas explained easily.

The back cover makes you think that the book is full of new ideas and advice. Well, if you've read any basic marketing book, you already know it all. In fact, if you have plain old common sense, you probably will not find anything new in that either.

I felt ripped off by the back cover comments. I read the book on a plane and, even for an airport book, I found it to be really lame.

This book really should be called: "The 10,000 Best Books on Sales, Marketing, Management, and General Business Compressed into 272 Easy and Small Pages So That Anyone Can Read Them." It has way too much information in way too condensed of a format.

And, you guessed it...a book that talks about everything doesn't do a good job of talking about anything. And, it's as much about marketing a service as it is an exhaustive compendium on the success of Wal-Mart.

It gave me a headache. It's written in Aesop's fable format, with a short tale in each of the 300 sections, and then a simplistic moral at the end of each of them.

I can see only two uses for this book. It could be an introductory book for someone who has never read a business book before, and wants a quick scan of a bunch of business topics. The other use could be for speakers. If you want a ready-made 1 minute speech on a business topic, this book has about 300 of them.

Personally, I wouldn't limit this book to only apply to sales. In fact, Harry Beckwith's information in this book could be applied to literally ANYTHING that involves communication with another human being. As he does in his other books, "The Invisible Touch" and "What Clients Love," Harry gives simple anecdotes to clarify otherwise complicated methods. He shines a comforting light on the intimidating shadow of "sales" and "marketing" to make it far easier to imagine yourself able to do whatever you are using your communications to accomplish.
At the end of each section he even has little one to two sentance "summaries" in bold, so you have a quick understanding of each point he is making.
In short, he has packed 1000 pages of priceless information, into a 250 page, easy to understand, and apply, book.
I strongly suggest not only buying this book, but the other two that I mentioned as well.
No matter if you want to be a sales and marketing success, a communications master, or simply someone who wants to better understand what inspires and influences people, this book is one you will be glad that you bought.

That's My Opinion But You're Welcome To It

I tried sales as a career in the past and let me tell you it isn't easy. Selling "services" is not about a monthly quota, it's not about your personal bills.
This book helps the average sales person with what their focus should be. Providing a "reasonable" or "fair" service that a client needs, recognizes and is willing to pay for. One of the main points that stuck with me was the fact that the potential prospect is the sales persons biggest competition, not the other sales guy down the street. A prospect can avoid using your services by doing it(the service) themselves or even by choosing to do nothing at all. That equals no sales and no commission.
Buy this book, and invest your time to read it. In the end, I bet your sales numbers will go up and your clients will be happier!

While the book is "Selling to the Invisible", what is very visible is that this book is packed with what works in marketing today. Harry Beckwith masterfully identifies the direction that marketing is going today and to capitalize on it. This book is a timeless marketing treasure. I highly encourage you to purchase a copy today!

This book is not an in depth study of marketing techniques, but rather one of the best collections of engaging questions and critical thinking prompts I have read on the subject of business marketing and focus.

For example, many companies focus on improving what they currently do and by doing so they look at themselves solely. This is not out of ego, but rather simply the way we usually operate. However, the internal focus will often result in another company focusing on not improving the service or product by a small percentage, but coming up with something 100% different. This requires that businesses think outside of the boundaries of their own products, services, or methods. When thinking of focus groups, conventional wisdom fails. Groups don't buy products, individuals do. Focus groups measure group dynamics not individual customer insights. A big miss, and yet another example of the hundreds of topics tackled here.

The insights here are nearly always contrary to conventional wisdom, and thus valuable. Whether it is the fact that "marketing is not a department" but the role of every single employee, or how to "position and focus" your organization on the right aspects of service your clients expect, this book has insights into a number of strategic alternatives. The section on pricing also contains some thought provoking ideas.

The book is laid out in a very quick, sound bite style that is easy to breeze through, or revisit from time to time. Overall, I very much enjoyed the presentation and insights throughout. I have about one of every 5 pages dog eared for future readings, an always reliable sign that the topics and information were worth the effort to read or review.

One quote at the end of the book (Page 245) sums up one of the major themes: "Services are human. Their successes depend on the relationships of people. The more you can see the patterns and better understand people, the more you will succeed - and this book was written with the hope that you will do just that." A very highly recommended book, with enough critical thinking prompts to keep one busy for a while just thinking about how to apply them.

Having spent much of my career in the I.T. services sector, I thoroughly enjoy researching other interests and broadening my understanding of topics that can enrich my life and career. In the area of marketing services, this publication provided ample, tangible information on modern marketing and exceeded my expectations in a number of ways.

First, the covers of this book are not too far apart, which is a rare find these days. Often, writers try to impart an excessive amount of irrelevant information in their writings, as though their real ambition is to write the next, great American novel. This book is different.

This publication is short, concise and filled with valuable information. If you are in the business of marketing, you need this book. For anyone in the service industry, consider giving yourself an edge over your competition by reading this insightful book, and putting into action the relevant suggestions of the author.

The ideas that the author brings up are good, but too often I felt like I wanted more. The second section was irritating. I got the feeling that the author has extensive experience in advising others, but little experience in personally carrying out - nice stories and good talk, but few real world details. On the other hand, I have been able to apply some of the ideas to my business. Stick it out past the second section and it gets a lot better.

Bottom line: Not the only book you'll need to learn about marketing your service, but a worthwhile investment.

Selling the Invisible is must reading for anyone who wants to understand what it really means to run a service business. Your clients will know good service when they "see" it, but they most likely won't be able to tell you what it is. Beckwith can and does. Good service is all about doing the little things to help your customers "like" you. It's about creating relationships with new friends. Read this book, and you'll find out that it's not the most technically competent business that wins, it's the most likeable one that will. We're all very lucky because it's not really hard to do the little things that'll please our customers. Or is it?

There are several hundred books available on the market about selling. Most of these books are based on tangible products, something the consumer can see, feel and recieve an almost immediate satisfaction after the purchase.
This books is one of the few available about selling services. When a consumer purchases a service from you or your company, they are paying for your promise to deliver someting in the future. This is especially true in the world of finance and insurance industry. A financial advisor sells a fund and the buyer expects to recieve x amount of interest on his in vestment at a later date. In the insurance industry, a client buys an automobile insurance policy but will probably never see the benefits of the sinsurance policy until he or she has an accident. How do you sell something that has no immediate benefit to the client? Read "Selling the Invisible".
There are twelve very easy to read chapters with many short examples (lacking a little bit on the proof side). I do believe it is an excellent book but it is too North American oriented to be carried over one to one for european, asian or middle-eastern markets. There will have to be a few cosmetic adjsutments made to be able to adapt to other makets but it is still a catalyst to start doing things differently.
The chapters and some of the main messages of those I recieved from the author Harry Beckwith:

Planning - 1.) Accept the limititations of planning 2.) Don't value planning for its result;the plan 3.)Don't plan your future plan your people. 4.)Do it now. The business obituary pages are filled with planners who waited. 5.)Beware of focus groups; they focus on today and planning is about tomorrow. 6.)Don't let the perfect ruin good. 7.)Don't look to experts for all your answers. Ther are no answers, only informed opinions.

How Prospects Think - 1.) Appeal only to a prospects reason, and you may have no appeal at all 2.) Familiarity breeds business; spread your word however you can. 3.)Take advantage of the recovery effect. Follow-up brilliantly.

Pointing and Focus - 1.)Stand for one distinctive thing that will give you a competative edge. 2.)To broaden your appeal, narrow your position. 3.)No company can position itself as anything, your prospects and customers put you there. Positioning is something the market does to you. You can only try and influence your position. 4.) Your position is all in the peoples minds. Find out what that position is. 5.)Focus. In everything from campaign for peanuts to campaign for presidents, focus wins.

Pricing - 1.)Don't assume that logical pricing is smart pricing. Maybe your price which makes you look like a good value, actually makes you look second rate. 2.)Setting your price is like setting a screw. A little resistance is a good sign. The reason 10% of the population are chronic complainers of price. 3.)Beware of the deadly middle in pricing. You communicate that as well... We are average. 4.)Beware of the rock bottom in pricing...you communicate we are substandard. 5.)Value is not a position.

Naming and Branding - 1.)Give your service a name, not an abbreviation 2.)Generic names encourage generic business. 3.)In service marketing almost nothing beats a brand. 4.)Building a brand doesn't take millions. It takes imagination.

Communicating and Selling - 1.)Make the service and the prospect feel compfortable 2.)Saying many things usually communicats nothing. 3.)Good basic communicating is good basic marketing. 4.)If you think your promotional idea might seem silly or unprofessional, it is. 5.)Prospects do not buy how good you are at what you do. They buy how good you are at who you are. 6.)Far better to say to little than too much. 7.)People hear what they see. Watch what you show. 8.)Give your marketing a human face.

Nurturing and Keeping Clients - 1.) Watch your relationship balance sheet, assume it is worse than it appears and fix it. 2.)Don't raise expectations you cannot meet. 3.)To manage satisfaction, you manage your customers expectations. 4.)Out of sight is out of mind. If you are not meeting regularly, you are not in their mind.

Overall an excellent book that contains a lot of reasons as to why service marketing is different and how to keep yourself visible amongst the competition.

Harry Beckwith's techniques in Selling the Invisible actually work. When you are dealing with service-related companies, it can be hard to understand what works and what does not. After all, services are not like products, Beckwith says, in that they are hard to define, often times you don't even think about the service unless you are confronted with the person providing the service (i.e., your dentist). Thus, you must make consistant reminders of who you are, and why your service is exceptional. Beckwith also writes in a way that is likely to allow you to remember what he says. He has his commentary in bold print, writes in very easy to read prose, and has a final line summarizing what he says in a few words. This is an excellent book and it should be on the book shelves of any would-be marketer or service-related business operator. It works in my business, and I work as a telephone psychic!

-- Michael Gordon

This book far exceeds the many others that I have read, for a couple of reasons. It is a compilation of what other books state sure but it has some new ideas as well (or at least new ways of looking and thinking about things) The unique quality this book has is it's success at bringing these concepts together and across in a simple, intelligent, applicable to the REAL WORLD format. The author also comes across as very honest, caring and experienced. A very easy book to read, both because of the material and the mini chapters which allowed me to fit it in throughout my day (which I was doing constantly) In fact I'm going to read it again and take notes this time, that is when my business partner finishes with it.

Honesty, Professionalism, Trust, Hardwork. Saves you time from sophomoric, expensive attempts to convince your clients they need to do business with you.

His style is honest, "look-you-in-the-eye" reasonableness. Can't remember when I sat down with a book and felt like I knew nothing about business marketing. A GREAT MENTOR and worthy of emulation, if not imitation.

You should be grateful he wrote this book.

I read this book while interning the summer before my senior year in undergraduate school. It uses stories and antecdotes to show you the obvious, it reinforces facts that you simply take for granted. I would highly recommend this book to anyone considering or in a job in marketing or consulting. It is an extremely fast read, but worth the time.

"Selling The Invisible" by Harry Beckwith is a great book for those who market services. Beckwith tells us selling a service amounts to selling a promise. Beckwith says prospects want to minimize the risk of a bad experience and are often incapable of evaluating the quality of a service. For example, few people know if the tax advice they receive is the best advice possible.

So, improving your skills at your service often doesn't lead to enhanced profitability. Being better at what you do won't lead to more sales. (Beckwith says flatly that in money management, for example, investment skill ranks lower than the skill in acquiring and retaining assets to manage. Clients, too, actually rate money management skill lower than desire to build a relationship, which is surprising. That clients rate trust high isn't surprising.)

Some of the advice I especially liked in "Selling The Invisible":

* Improve your points of contact. Beckwith says we should evaluate every point at which our company interacts with a client-phone calls, business cards, meetings, etc. Beckwith says we should aim to make a phenomenal impression at every point of contact. And, this isn't difficult to do, given that most organizations have relatively few points of contact.

* The greatest value in a plan isn't the plan that results. It's the thinking that went into it.

* Focus groups aren't good, because the results are dependent upon group dynamics. Rather, seek independent, oral surveys from your customers.

* Ask: What are you good at? Beckwith says too many companies define themselves by their industry, which tends to pigeonhole their thinking. Beckwith suggests doing something, learning from it, and then adjusting appropriately.

* Service companies are selling a relationship. The prospect must feel valued and comfortable.

* Sell hope and happiness. People like hope and happiness. But, for professional services, never be gimmicky or use trickery, because service businesses must always build trust. And, trickery implies you trick clients. However, service companies must be careful not to overpromise. Client expectations must be managed. If a client expects a miracle and only gets very good service, he won't be happy.

* Don't aim for greatness or being best. Aim to be positively good. In marketing, most clients aren't looking for the very best, which probably will be too expensive. They're looking for worry-free and good service. Beckwith suggests avoiding braggery and puffery and consider using understatement.

* Risk yourself. Don't fear rejection or failure.

* When in doubt about what to do, Beckwith suggests, "Get out there. Almost anywhere. Let opportunity hit you." Beckwith tells us many strategists procrastinate, because they don't want to see their plans fail. But, that will get you nowhere. You need to execute tactics to learn and improve.

* Don't overgeneralize. Beckwith writes, "have a healthy distrust of what experience has taught you."

Beckwith makes a convincing case that we can't rely upon memory, experience, authority, and even common sense to know what will work in marketing. For example, about authority, Beckwith writes, "Ideas do not follow the good thinking in an organization; ideas follow the power." And, he points out that power often goes to those who look and sound like they should have power. In fact, he tells us the strongest predictor of an MBA's starting salary is height, not academic or business performance.

Beckwith tells us that in today's world people are looking for shortcuts and the best short cut of all is a brand, because a brand implies a name that is trusted to deliver. Branded products and services tend to be most profitable. Beckwith writes: "In service marketing, almost nothing beats a brand." (Another good book about branding is "Fusion Branding" by Nick Wreden.)

"Selling The Invisible" also has great advice about naming a company, publicity, and communication. The book's one weakness is its discussion of positioning, which I found a bit boring and skipped. In another section, Beckwith needlessly repeats himself about the need to thank people. Overall, I enjoyed and recommend "Selling The Invisible."

Peter Hupalo, Author of "Thinking Like An Entrepreneur"

Ra-ra books are those kinds of books that are full of good(?) intentions and motivational speech ("you can do it", "yeah", "believe", "position", "improve your service"), but then offer no practical advice on how exactly to achieve these goals.

I am the owner of a small service business, so I read these kinds of books not for personal enjoyment, career advancement or writing amazon.com reviews, but to find insight about how to improve my business.

This book conveyed no additional information and when reading it I had a strange deja-vu feeling that many fragments and anecdotes I had already read before. What is worse, the book is filled with anecdotal evidence - someone did that and succeded, someother didn't and failed, but anecdotal evidence is even worse than no evidence, since you don't know the context, the economy, the market and all the conditions that influenced the outcome. Nowadays you can find anecdotal "evidence" to support just about anything. Some of the world oldest men and women are smokers, but surely this does not mean that you should smoke as much as you can.

There are no statistics, no research (the author even tells in one of the so-called falacies to distrust everything that begins with "the resarch shows") no proof whatsoever of anything. Compare this to books like Cialdini's "Influence" or Caples' "Tested Advertising Methods".

The chapters are one or two page anecdotes ending each one with a supposeldy profound moral. For example, "when choosing a name, choose one that sounds well", "find out what clients are really buying","planning is an imprecise art". No advice is given, however, about what makes a name sound well, how to exactly find what clients are really buying, etc. Of course, the typical references to McDonalds, Federal Express and Disney are also there. "Be like them", the author preaches.

A great disappointment after all these stellar reviews here. 1 star is too much.

Ra-ra books are those kinds of books that are full of good(?) intentions and motivational speech ("you can do it", "yeah", "believe", "position", "improve your service"), but then offer no practical advice on how exactly to achieve these goals.

I am the owner of a small service (training) business, so I read these kinds of books not for personal enjoyment, career advancement or writing amazon reviews, but to find insight about how to improve my business.

This book conveyed no additional information and when reading it I had a strange deja-vu feeling that many fragments and anecdotes I had already read before. What is worse, the book is filled with anecdotal evidence - someone did that and succeded, someother didn't and failed; anecdotal evidence, however, is even worse than no evidence, since you don't know the context, the economy, the market and all the conditions that influenced the outcome. Nowadays you can find anecdotal "evidence" to support just about anything. For example, some of the world oldest men and women are habitual smokers, but surely this does not mean that you should smoke as much as you can to live a hundred years.

There are no statistics, no research (the author even tells in one of the so-called falacies to distrust everything that begins with "the resarch shows") no proof whatsoever of anything. Compare this to books like Cialdini's "Influence" or Caples' "Tested Advertising Methods".

The chapters are one or two page anecdotes ending each one with a supposeldy profound moral. For example, "when choosing a name, choose one that sounds well", "find out what clients are really buying","planning is an imprecise art". No advice is given, however, about what makes a name sound well, how to exactly find what clients are really buying, etc. Of course, the typical references to McDonalds, Federal Express and Disney are also there. "Be like them", the author preaches.

A great disappointment after all these stellar reviews here. 1 star is too much.

In a crowded space of space of sales and marketing books lacking substantive data, Harry Beckwith's Selling the Invisible proves to be a valuable read. Basically, the text is a collection of tips and vignettes that are quite entertaining. As the name implies, the focus is on marketing professional services. It doesn't focus on one area, such as consulting or legal services. As someone who is in the business of providing consulting services, I found this quite relevant.

The book is a comprised of a list of concepts such as positioning, pricing, and publicity, whereby it tells a short story with anecdotal evidence on a premise. Then it leaves the reader with a short statement at the end of each discussion such as "make your position clear".

The book is a light read, which makes the reader think, "I should have already known this". It is also nice that the book is not as self-serving as most others, which pitch to readers, "with our strategy, customers have shown 75% increase in sales." For an independent who is selling services, I would suggest this a must read. For larger service providers with a brand name and an integrated marketing strategy, it may be slightly less valuable.